15 Books By Women We're Loving Right Now

BY LYDIA A. CYRUS

Here is a list of books written by brilliant women in non-fiction, poetry, and fiction — inspired by this past Women’s History Month.

User Not Found by Felicity Fenton 

This book is actually a tiny essay. Think: A powerful essay about the intricacies of social media and womanhood that fits in your pocket! Fenton writes about her life in social media (and out). If you’ve ever wondered about the color of apps, been sent a dick pic, or just wondered about the profundity of existing digitally in present day, this essay is for you. Fenton wonders at one point if anyone is thinking about her. This thought leads her to the realization that she is, “just a human mammal amongst billions of other human mammals. I’m dander in the corner, the buzz in the background.” Fenton’s lyrical work is biting and honest and I’ve been keeping her little book on my nightstand for those nights when I’m up too late, window shopping on Etsy and checking Twitter every five minutes. 

Goodbye, Sweet Girl by Kelly Sundberg

Sundberg’s memoir centers around the physically and mentally abusive relationship with her husband. She chronicles the life of a woman from a working-class background who aims to not only exit an abusive marriage but to also gain an education and return to herself. The memoir is a fast read, lyrical and endearing. Sundberg writes the truths that are hardest to say and quite frankly doesn’t give a damn if the truth reveals the brutality that others have hidden. She reminds the reader all along the wild, highly intelligent woman she was before the abuse never left the room and will always triumph in the end. 

Heartberries by Terese Mailhot

Mailhot, a First Nation Canadian writer, weaves together the story of her life revealing the trauma and silence that clouded her. Her memoir welcomes the reader into the scenes of her early life with her mother and leads the reader to the revelation that perforates her story. The truth, she writes, is essential and the most powerful thing to unleash. She writes about her diagnosis of PTSD and bipolar II, the bitterness of loss in relationships, and provides insight into what the pathway to after looks like. 

Excavation by Wendy C. Ortiz

When I saw the cover of this memoir, a stunning photo of a young Ortiz at the beach, I felt compelled to look further. Excavation explores the relationship between a young Ortiz and her teacher, a man fifteen years older than her. He fuels her passion for writing and helps her to access a powerful sense of self as a teenager living with her alcoholic parents. Ortiz does the daring task of unraveling preconceived notion of what a predatory relationship is and what a victim looks like. She proves that the world and the relationships we create within it is made up of uncertainty and nothing is what it seems to be. 

Boyfriends by Tara Atkinson 

Atkinson writes about a young woman whose journey from first boyfriend, to college, to second boyfriend, and beyond. She reminds readers about what it feels like to have your first kiss, first real crush, first everything. And how, as you get older, not only do you change but your desires and wants change too. She explores what it means to be a single woman in 2019, searching in person and online for connection. It’s sweet and nostalgic in the best ways, and will make you think about what it means to be in a relationship not only with others, but with yourself too. 

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden

I have patiently awaited the arrival of this book for months. Admiring Madden through my phone screen and awestruck by the glitter on the cover of the book (it’s seriously a beautiful cover). Madden’s memoir takes you to Boca Raton, Florida where, growing up as a queer, biracial teen, her concepts of right and wrong, beauty and ruin live together. Her parents are battling their own addictions and realizations as she tries to navigate the spaces around her. Madden, an acclaimed essayist, wields her language fiercely and writes fluidly, stitching together the warm, sometimes heartbreaking, answer to the question, “what do you want to know?” 

Starvation Mode by Elissa Washuta 

I picked Washuta’s book My Body is a Book of Rules last summer and loved it so much that I read most of it in the bathtub. Washuta’s prose is so illuminating and honest that it feels like conversation between the reader and a close, trustworthy friend. In Starvation Mode, she writes about her complicated relationship with food. When nothing is in your control, how do you cope? Washuta struggles to create her body in the image of her longing while also experimenting with the genre of creative non-fiction. Both of which creates a work that stands elegantly and surely as an essential read for women who have complicated relationships with their body, their sustenance, and shattering the traditions of appearance. 

The Underneath by Melanie Finn 

Follow the trail of unsettling memories and the uncanny, as Kay, the protagonist, as she slowly unravels. While trying to reconcile a tumultuous marriage, the heaviness of motherhood, and a traumatic past event, she begins to wonder what really happened to the family that lived in her house before her. Finn’s novel is a true modern day haunting that deals not with ghosts but with the possession of the demands of being a woman. The novel investigates the things that plague Kay as she tries to solve the puzzles of her life. 

The Word for Woman is Wilderness by Abi Andrews

If you’ve ever read or watched the countless narratives about men traveling to Alaska to blow up their lives, you’ve probably wondered why it is there are so few narratives of women doing the same. Women seeking out the natural world as a means of personal growth. Andrews does just that in The Word. The protagonist is nineteen year old Erin who leaves the safety of home behind in order to discover. She questions the history of everything from nuclear warfare to birth control. Andrews tackles the old archetype of the adventure always belonging to a man. 

Brute by Emily Skaja

The highly anticipated first collection from poet Emily Skaja deals with remains of an ended relationship. Skaja carves survival and redemption into the landscape of what a women grieving looks like. She writes of pain that begins as internal and seeps into a physicality that beckons her to scale and defeat it. The universal truth of what it feels like to be abused and to move on leaks throughout the poems and enchants the reader. Skaja’s book begins with the same Anne Carson epigraph as T Kira Madden’s and positions the reader to prepare themselves for the journey. Skaja twists the plight of hurt into a weapon that strikes out as beauty and has the potential leave readers in both tears and smiles.

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison 

This collection of essays considers the possibilities of what it means to care. Is it ever really possible to feel the pain of others? Over the course of several essay, Jamison depicts curious events such as the story of an actor who presents to medical students as someone with symptoms that the students must identify in order to learn. She also writes about the sense of voyeurism the plagues the pain of women in literature. This collection is an essential piece of reading for those still learning how to balance self-love and love for others too. It doesn’t ask, can you pour from empty cup? but instead defines what that cup looks like and what rests within it and why. 

Abandon Me by Melissa Febos

Febos’ first memoir Whipsmart detailed her life as a graduate student working as a dominatrix. In Abandon Me she writes about the difficult reality of longing for connection with others. What happens when you drown yourself in another? She visits relationships both romantic and not and the ways in which abandonment can strike and wound at any time, with anyone. As with Whipsmart, Febos isn’t afraid to have conversations about the elements of her life that both built and seemingly destroyed her. She writes about the longing of belonging. Seemingly asking, what does inclusion look like and how do we achieve it? 

The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang

One of the most talked about books of 2019, Collected, is a collection of essays telling about the life of a woman who suffers from mental illness and a chronic illness. Wang slices open the examination of what her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder and examines the chaos of coping. She attests to the incredible resiliency that endures recovery and shapes the future of the diagnosed through her own experiences. When it comes to balancing a debilitating reality with the hopes of a promising future, Wang constructs an important conversation not only about mental health but also about the possibilities of life for women whose lives do not fit into one box or even two. 

Animals Strike Curious Poses by Elena Passarello 

In this collection of essays, Passarello meditates on the fascinating nature of animals and performance. She discussed what it means to be an immortal animal, placed into history by humans and how their fame came to be. Humanity commodifies the bodies animals both living and not and Passarello presents this with careful prose. She is aware of the ways in which humanity must always somehow have the position of authority over others and spares the reader nothing. She goes so far as to highlight the aftermath of the death of Cecil the Lion in 2015 by repeating the notion that the doctor who killed Cecil did not know he had a name at all. This repetition begs the question: Do we have to name an animal, give it celebrity status, and attempt to mythologize in order to respect it?

Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods by Tishani Doshi 

In her third collection of poetry, Doshi aims to rebuke the history of silence surrounding women who have survived. She pulls apart identity and trauma in order to create a space in time where silence is no longer synonymous with womanhood. The poems are constructed with careful detail and attention to movement and sound. As the title suggests, women are no longer hidden but are now returning to their lives with power and the capability of anything. 

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Lydia A. Cyrus is a creative nonfiction writer and poet from Huntington, West Virginia. Her work as been featured in Thoreau's Rooster, Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Albion Review, and Luna Luna. Her essay "We Love You Anyway," was featured in the 2017 anthology Family Don't End with Blood which chronicles the lives of fans and actors from the television show Supernatural.

She lives and works in Huntington where she spends her time being politically active and volunteering. She is a proud Mountain Woman who strives to make positive change in Southern Appalachia. She enjoys the color red and all things Wonder Woman related! You can usually find her walking around the woods and surrounding areas as she strives to find solitude in the natural world.  Twitter: @lydiaacyrus 

3 Poems by Liv Walton

BY LIV WALTON
Curated by Nicola Maye Goldberg

Taurus

You will feel a flash of orange and then something new. You will feel, maybe — that it is your birthright to have tangerines in a bowl on your counter, and you will be correct. The stars have aligned above a tear in the earth and you should dress in sienna, paint your nails rust; lie with your shoulder blades against a cool plot of ground and recall that without gravity, the flame of a candle is round and blue.

We can’t say for certain, but if you were to wear blush on Friday something nice might happen to you. We can’t say for certain, but if you pause to buy lilacs at the bodega on the corner a beautiful stranger might know you. We can’t say for certain, but if you come across water you have gone the right direction.

You are in motion — the burn of your lungs, the length of your spine; you are running and itching and spilling this springtime. You will outgrow something that was once a comfort; you will replace it with a song you hum in the soft parts of yourself.

Taurus, you might always be on the strange side of tender but someone has given you a secret that tastes yellow. Have you seen the phosphorescence in August? You will be that wild light to someone who loves you.

Suggestions: write the words you need on the back of your hand. cry on an uptown train in the odd hours of morning [there is awe to be considered]. look at the photo you haven’t forgotten. the number 27 will be important.

Aquarius

So far you have seen every type of sunset, but you miss the way light casts blue in those slow hours before dawn. Of course there are strings, but you will know how to weave together what is wanted when it calls you. Make the motion that feels natural, then make it again with your other hand.

In general, you should pet more dogs. Place yourself in green surroundings and put down what can afford to be left behind. Midweek you will spill an important thing, but you will find it again in some unexpected way. We wish we could tell you more, but we’ve already forgotten —

Aquarius, you are numbers and numbers but the rhythm of desire speaks in so many different tongues. Be slow with yourself and sit amongst the hidden pages: a message you wrote will reveal itself in those depths. This month your horizons will shift endless and open; you will feel unmoored but not unsettled. Consider the points where you have made contact and the direction of your motions — you move to a frequency others should attune to.

We suggest you write a haiku that has no thread. We suggest that you log off of web md forever. And we suggest that, if you know the words, try to speak them. Be mindful of the bits that smolder.

Virgo

The good news is that the days have been getting longer for three weeks now. The good news is that the rain has cleared, and tonight there will be sky through the top corner of your kitchen. The good news is that always and always but especially today, when they look down at you the stars say: whatever.

You will learn this year that Instagram fame is rapturous but fleeting, and you will parse the difference between types of stillness (a clue: one will tremble). You will unspool something that spills navy, and minutes will sit heavy, but you will think: moon cycle. Think: fingerprints. Think: unravel.

Virgo, you are a different touch – for you I am new, I am neat and terrible and please; all teeth. (A habit I can’t shake: the unbelievableness of wantingsomeonewantingme still jolts me back to sixteen, delirious).

For you, we suggest downhill and downtime. For you, we suggest Frank Ocean’s brand of forever. For you, we suggest leaving this one up to chance. The good news is that there’s still more to be had

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Liv Walton is a Canadian writer based in New York City. 

Giovan Coppola & Vi Khi Nao Talking Italian Poets, Cats and Place

by VI KHI NAO
in conversation with GIOVAN COPPOLA

VI KHI NAO: Will you depict the landscape of Ischia. What is it like today?

GIOVAN COPPOLA: I’m looking out the bedroom window and I see a sliver of the sea between the trees. The sun is setting and the clouds are bathing. And the wind has started. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be windy. I wish I could tell you which wind it is, but I’m still learning their names.

VKN: The way you lovingly and lyrically depict this filled my heart with love for your Ischia. If you were to invent a name or two for that wind, what would you call it? Also, if you had an ideal poet life, what would that writing life look like?

GC: I remember you once told me that ‘eloigne’ was your favourite word. Wait, I don’t think that’s the right word. Do you remember it?

VKN: Eloign. Without the “e”, but I prefer your invention.

GC: I would name the wind Eloign.

VKN: I noticed that you were reading Rabbit by Sophie Robinson, which recently came out. How is it so far? Will you talk about the current landscape of the poetry world? You have read internationally from Brit lit and American. What do you think make a poet great in this Brexit, Trump era? What are some of the criteria or traits for such poets? In other words, what kind of linguistic or lyrical materials seduce your soul the most?

GC: I’ve loved Sophie Robinson’s poetry for a few years now. Her poems make me feel like it’s morning and I’ve just woken up and realised that something has happened to me during the night that has changed everything. Like during the night I was lassoed and pulled to a group of stars that have pumped their gumption into me and I will now become a better braver person in the waking world. Her poems have fish bone teeth and crime. They break open the pain and make something new.

Second question: I don’t know what makes a poet great in this Brexit - Trump era. A poet that keeps writing, keeps wanting to know, I guess. A poet that keeps loving. A poet that takes care of herself and the winds.

Third question: What materials seduce my soul? Poems that live where they want to live. Poems that make room. Poems that love things.

VKN: That is so gorgeously depicted “lassoed and pulled to a group of stars.” She is so lucky to have you as a reader ! If you were to interview her, what would be one question you would like to ask?

GC: Once your poems pull through the pain, where do they lay down their heads?

VKN: Can you talk about the poems or any translations you are working on? What is the process like for you? And, what direction do you foresee your own journey with your work? Would you like your process to be more accelerated? Where it infuses everything you touch and cook?

GC: Thank you for all of these questions, Vi. They inoculate me.

I recently came back from FILL, the Festival of Italian Literature in London, and I did a reading with a group of poets. We were all included in the anthology Wretched Strangers (Boiler House Press) as non-UK poets who contributed to the poetry world in the UK. The anthology was put together in response to Brexit and the current political upheaval making way for powerful responses from the far right against refugees and immigration. Four of the poets that read were non-native English speakers writing in English and also mixed in other languages into their English poems. And I thought how wonderful that was and wondered why I didn’t think I could do the same in Italian? It made me think about how the English language can be a symbol of progress. That you learn English, you move to an English speaking country, you transform yourself in a different language. What does that mean about me moving back to Italy where my parents have come from? Would me writing in Italian be seen as progress? Or is it pedalling counter-clockwise? Or is it turning into a seed?

I want to write in Italian or mix English and Italian. I think my poems, at least when I read them out loud, sound tough, like hard cheese rinds before you throw them in the soup. And my New York accent comes out. <dawg> I’d like to see what happens in Italian. I’d like to dissolve in Italian. I don’t think I’d have to dismantle anything, but I think it means when I go for walks I would have to push myself onto people. Linger and talk to them. Even to the Jehovah Witnesses, although I don’t want to talk about Jesus.

You know one thing I noticed that I really liked? When I was in London for the Italian Literature Festival, I sat next to a lady. She was an academic that studied post-war Neapolitan literature written by women. At one point she gave me a candy. A few days later, I took one of my cats to the vet and the vet offered me a gummy worm from a bag. I really love eating candy with Italian women.

VKN: I want to eat Starbursts with Italian women too !What are the poets you read with were like? Are they different from you or similar? Will you introduce us to a few great Italian poets that everyone must read or else their existence on earth would seem meaningless otherwise?

GC: The poets I read with at FILL were really diverse. I wish I could have talked to them more or asked more interesting questions during the Q&A, but I suspect like many people, I’m always shy after readings and there doesn’t seem to be enough time to calm down afterwards and talk. I wish after a reading there was always dinner. Food disarms people and makes people trust each other. You can’t take yourself seriously when you have food in your mouth. Like eating candy with people. The next poetry reading I’m going to bring candy.

But yes, some Italian poets I really love and that I’ve got to meet during poetry readings or have been recommended to me are Carla Mussi, Roberto Minardi, Alessandro Mistrorigo, Chandra Livia Candiani, Alessandro Burbank, Andrea Inglese, Giovanni Asmundo, Fabia Ghenzovich, I want to know so many more.

VKN: I am not familiar with these poets. Will you please give me a little introduction to one or two poets you mentioned? Are they contemporary? Old-fashioned? Dead? Alive but obscure? Alive and gregarious? Dreadfully enticing in their form, but wouldn't take a dog out for a walk?

GC: They are alive and contemporary, some I’ve met, some I’ve just read. Some are young and shy and delicate and others are robust in their sexuality. Some are travelers and some like to stay home. There are so many people to know about and read! I’m still learning about what’s out there and letting things carry me to where they want to go. Carla Mussi’s latest book of poetry is Sconto di Pena (Puntoacapo, 2016) roughly translated as ‘Reduced sentence’ and it’s about a murder trial of a woman who has killed her husband from the woman’s point of view. Each poem is like a holographic statement, phrases that cut, the woman is like a genius wild animal.

Then there are Roberto Minardi and Alessandro Mistrorigo. Roberto Minardi’s La citta’ che c’entra (ZONAcontemporanea, 2015) are about living in an urban landscape. There are people, birds and cats, public transportation, sandwiches and dinner in front of the television. The poems give you a perspective of solitude where many things happen. Roberto and I have translated a few poems for each other which was really fun. That was my first time translating poetry and he was lovely to work with, encouraging and patient. Alessandro Mistrorigo’s Stazioni (Ronzani Editore, 2018) were written in various places across Europe and Asia. Characters that all come from somewhere else, temporary people and places and it makes me think about how we become a place, how we can blend into the space around us. Reading the poems reminded me of the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell.

VKN: What was life in UK like for you before you moved back to Italy? Do you miss the poetry landscape there? And, if you were to create your own here in Italy, a poetry club, what kind of baking or culinary dishes would you make to seduce those who already love the sea to consistently come? Would you ever run or host a regular reading series?

GC: I loved London for many reasons and I loved the poetry landscape there. I met many poets and writers and there were many writers that would pass through to give readings. All kinds of readings to party style reading slam poetry jams to sit down quiet readings to poetry as performance art to elevated academic readings to rock concert style readings, so many kinds so you didn’t have to feel like every single one of them had to have a meaning. I mean you didn’t feel the pressure to have a great time or to even listen. It was okay to be bored because you were still going to get something out of it.

I miss that, but not enough to go back. I like it here and I want to hold dinner party poetry readings in the garden. I want poets to come over and eat and read poems. How do I invite people that don’t know me to come over and eat? A no-pressure environment. If they want to, they could use big words and talk about the PhD they’re working on. And they could also talk about how many times a week they wash their hair. I’d like to read poems where anything can happen and I want to read poems that change you. I want to eat things while reading poems.

VKN: The question you asked Sophie R earlier in our interview, if you were to answer that question on her behalf, how would you reply to it? I don’t know if she would mind, but let us pretend that she wouldn’t.

GC: I think her poems rest on her cat and they watch television together. Maybe her cat is a little wheezy and the poem who has done all the heavy breathing in the lines, can now show her cat how to slow down. They teach each other about the aftermath.

VKN: You are a cat lover. This is obvious on your Instagram posts. Do cats make great poets based on your observation of them? Or they make better ice cream, left too long in the sun and they would melt.

GC: I don’t think cats melt. They imitate their dry little turds in the sand. I think cats are spectacular poets. Have you read The History by Elsa Morante? There is a character Usepe, who is a little boy that suffers from epileptic seizures. He’s a little boy and he’s a poet and he doesn’t write them down, he just says them. Shouts them into the air. He talks to the trees and tells them a poem or tells the river a poem. He’s a lonely boy. I think cats are like Usepe. They say the poems, but it’s not necessary to preserve them. I think that’s why wherever they are it feels like home. That’s why they make home feel like home.

VKN: If you have a dish you made that looks like a walking example of poetry, will you share that pic with us?

GC: Good question. Let me check the files.

I have to find a picture of it, but maybe I didn’t take the picture of what I have in my mind. I made roasted tomatoes over the summer that I loved. I had bought an electric oven because my gas oven is shit. So the tomatoes were the first thing I made. I think I roasted them for two hours. I set up the oven in the garden so it wouldn’t heat up the house. I sliced the tomatoes, sprinkled fresh thyme on them, some salt and olive oil and then I put them in the oven. I sat in the kitchen while they roasted outside, keeping an eye on the cats in case they toppled over the oven. They were still kittens then and I anticipated constant trouble. I wore a green striped house dress and sweated my guts. The tomatoes were delicious. Carmelised. I put them on top of bread.

VKN: You take amazing photographs, Giovan! And, I just want the world to see through your eyes. Will you share one that you are able to access? So that we have some sense of your aesthetics?

GC: Let me look for one. What would you like to see?

VKN: Photos of Ischia? Or places you went for your morning, afternoon, or evening walk? Maybe some pictures of your cats, languishing like supermodels?

GC: See below

VKN: How are your cats? Some were ill the last few times I spoke to you. Why do you think they fall ill? Which one is potentially most poetic? And, what is writing poetry for a felinic entity? If they had to work like us homo sapiens, which profession do you think they would excel in? Oraclers? Philosophers? Dancers? Bartenders?

GC: My cats are wonderful. I love them more and more every day. Indy has had a bad cough that she’s been taking medicine for. I even put her in the cat carrier, wrapped it in plastic, and stuck in a tube that steamed out a medicinal vapor. She didn’t like that. So then I decided to leave her alone and now she’s getting better. I think she got sick because I went away to New York and she got sad. All of them are poetic, some days one is more poetic than the others.

If cats had a human job, I could see Sesto as a garbage collector and have a lot of fun doing it. He looks like he’d enjoy a union. Indy would be a research scientist. Rose would be a talk show host, she loves to gossip. Mucca would be a creepy neighbour who collects cans. Pippo would be a basketball player and have a large sneaker collection.

VKN: My god! Their profession so wild ! There was one project about stinking nuns you were eagerly and excitedly pursuing. How is it going so far? Are these nuns really stinky like durians? Or different stinkiness? Is your project a collection of essays or poems? Or a combination of personal anecdotes of your post-nomadic life or something else? How would you like to work or rework on this?

GC: That’s funny you asked Vi. Now that I quit my job, I want to work on the stinking nun. My poet friend Ariadne Radi Cor, who lives in Blacksburg, Virginia is starting a writing group. It is a collection of 6 of us and we will have a monthly deadline to share work with each other and then do a skype call where we can both talk about shit and serious things. So my plan is to use the writing group to work on the stinking nun and let it be whatever it wants to be. Right now it’s like a poetic novella, but I’d like to write some parts in Italian and see what happens.

VKN: You have made so many life-altering changes in the last year or so, can you talk about the emotional thoughts or intuitive courage that drove your soul to make these transformative paths?

GC: It’s been almost exactly a year since I moved to Italy and if I remember myself a year ago, I was terrified and I ate a lot of burgers and fries. One week I ate McDonalds two days in a row and then the third day I ate 5 hot dogs for a snack.

So many emotions and so much fear. I had never been as terrified doing something because it felt like there was no way back. And I imagined all the terrible things that could happen. I felt like I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. Like I was making my ancestors angry by going back to Italy, doing the impossible, going back to live in the place that they had to leave. I could hear their voices and voices of other Italians in London, like it was a bourgeouis american expat fantasy, that my desire to live where I wanted to live was invalid.

But I kept pushing through and the burgers and hot dogs gave me temporary relief. And each step that I took, it was like someone smiled back at me. Like at the airport check in the airline person let us go through without paying for our overweight luggage. And slowly, even if there were difficult times and frustrating moments, things were okay. Neither of us were punished or yelled out or threatened to get kicked out.

But if I think about what kept me going was that I was doing what I wanted and then as soon as we moved into our yellow house, a pregnant cat showed up and decided to move in. And she had her babies. And then once my residency permit was ready (after 8 months of waiting) a little abandoned kitten showed up in the garden. And then, as soon as I decided to quit my job and work on the stinking nun, another little kitten showed up in the garden.

That cats make me feel like this is home. And also that I can’t leave that we need to take care of each other now.

VKN: You are so brave, Giovan! Thank you for sharing your process with us. If there were an omelet or a piece of fruit or a poem to depict you today or a famous actor or actress in the black and white era who could cat-ure (capture) your emotional composition today, what would that object be?

GC: Hm, let me think. Anna Magnani they say was a gattarda, meaning a cat lady, someone who loves cats. She would feed the stray cats in Rome. But she wore her scars like a dress. I’m not sure I’m as strong as her. Her fury was smoldering.

I think I would be broken clementine peels on a powder blue table today. A diaphanous dress. An eloign wind. Smack face down on the couch, lazing like wax.

VKN: You are currently in Ischia, Italy and I am in Iowa City when this interview takes place, if you could teleport one cat who could pretend to be my secretary for a day, which one of your cats would you deploy for this service? I would pay your cat naturally. One poppy or peony to his/her owner per hour.

GC: Hah! I would send you Pippo. He could help you organise your receipts.

Giovanna Coppola (New York, 1979) is a poet and writer. After living in London for 10 years, she recently moved to Naples, Italy. She has performed at events and poetry festivals in the US, UK and Italy recently including the Festival of Italian Literature in London (FILL 2018), La Palabra en el Mundo Venesia (2018) and the European Poetry Festival (2018). Her work (poems, short stories, essay) have been published in Crab Fat Magazine, The Stockholm Review of Literature, Journal 69, JSTOR Daily and in the anthologies Millets (2017, Zeno Press) and Wretched Strangers (2018, Boiler House Press).

VI KHI NAO is the author of Sheep Machine (Black Sun Lit, 2018) and Umbilical Hospital (Press 1913, 2017), and of the short stories collection, A Brief Alphabet of Torture, which won FC2’s Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize in 2016, the novel, Fish in Exile (Coffee House Press, 2016), and the poetry collection, The Old Philosopher, which won the Nightboat Books Prize for Poetry in 2014.  Her work includes poetry, fiction, film and cross-genre collaboration. Her stories, poems, and drawings have appeared in NOON, Ploughshares, Black Warrior Review and BOMB, among others. She holds an MFA in fiction from Brown University, where she received the John Hawkes and Feldman Prizes in fiction and the Kim Ann Arstark Memorial Award in poetry. 

A Lippie List Inspired by Fairy Tale Films and Books

BY MONIQUE QUINTANA

Fairy tales have gorgeous aesthetics. Why not paint our mouths with them? Here’s a short list of fun fairy tale art and lippies that coordinate to their fantastical colors. 

1. Cartoons in the Suicide Forest by Leza Cantoral (Bizarro Pulp Press, 2016). A smart psychedelic and shocking punk rock doll of a short story collection.

The lippie: “Unusual” by Pretty Zombie Cosmetics

Order Cartoon’s in the Suicide Forest Here.

2. The Last Unicorn, 1982 A mythical beauty meets demon fantastical in this animated film adaptation of Peter S. Beagle novel.

The lippie: “Boy Trouble” by The Lip Bar   

3. The Tale of Tales, 2015 A trio of dark and decadent yarns inspired by the works of Giambattista Basile make up this film directed by Matteo Garrone. Starring Salma Hayek as a monster-heart-eating queen.

 The lippie: “1922- Blood Red” by Beseme Cosmetics  

4. Heavenly Creatures, 1994 Peter Jackson’s film of teenage angst, the writer’s dreamscape, and bloody matricide.

The lippie: “Paper Flowers” by Necromancy Cosmetics

4. The Lais of Marie de France, Penguin Books. A collection of narrative poems that explore the beautiful and grotesquely shape-shifting nature of love.

The lippie:  “Street Dreams” by Lipmatic

Order this book here.

Monique Quintana is a Senior Associate Editor at Luna Luna Magazine and the Fiction Editor for Five 2 One Magazine. Her work has appeared in Queen Mob's Tea House, Winter Tangerine, Huizache, and the Acentos Review, among other publications. She is a fiction fellow of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley Workshop, an alumna of the Sundress Academy of the Arts, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. Her debut novella, Cenote City, is newly released from Clash books. You can find her at moniquequintana.com

AstroLushes: A New Podcast for Astrology Lovers Everywhere

ASTROLUSHES is a podcast at the intersection of astrology and literature, ritual, wellness, pop culture, creativity — and, of course, wine. Hosted by Luna Luna editor-in-chief Lisa Marie Basile and contributor Andi Talarico (both water signs!), you can expect guests, giveaways, book reviews, and more. You’ll have fun, but you’ll also go deep.

Episode 1 is an introductory episode during which the hosts chat about astrology’s impact in their own lives, plus they tackle the ideas of reductive astrology memes, pop culture (Rihanna lyrics!), folk magic, family lineage and trauma. They also a Rapid Fire Round of Guess That Sign (which sign is Poe?).

For now, you can listen to ASTROLUSHES on Anchor.Fm (there’s an app and also a website), but the podcast will soon be available on iTunes, Spotify, and everywhere else podcasts can be found. If you like what you hear, leave them a clap or star the show on Anchor. You can also listen below!

You can tweet them at @astrolushes.

Healer or Trickster? On Healers Taking Advantage of The Vulnerable

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

In a recent article in The Daily Dot, a popular influencer was called out for their “blurry” beliefs and work, overpriced but not actually handmade goods (as claimed) and abusive tendencies toward employees. The overarching message of the piece: Not every healer or influencer out there — no matter their follower numbers or beautiful Insta-curation — is worth their salt. Some, in fact, are downright theives. 

I’ve always taken issue with people selling promises of healing without any real sense of accountability. Grandiose and often empty words (“light and love heals everything,” “all you have to do is manifest hard enough!” and “you have to invest in X to find abundance”) are distracting to people in rough situations. These are — I have been, and will be — people who want to be seen, validated, and healed. 

I just can’t get past overpriced abundance rituals, the refusal to acknowledge the importance of shadow work, or concepts that aren’t grounded in reality. Because love and light and abundance rituals do not solve racism or poverty. And because telling people your cheap, badly-produced goods are ethically sourced hurts everyone at every level.

The thing is, it’s hard to tell the frauds from the sincere folks. I started noticing this several years ago, when I created Luna Luna (which obviously has a vertical around magic and ritual).  I’d come across healers and gurus and guides who seemed to have it all together: Beautiful photos. Money. Bestselling books. They’d sell full moon serums or crystal-infused oils. They’d sell you candles that would attract money or heal a disease or find you a lover. How could one parse the capitalist who appropriates spirituality from the person who genuinely cared? And how can one ethically tout an object that ‘cures’ social and physical/mental ills, without acknowledging the many variables at play?

I would consider myself spiritual in specific ways, but this wasn’t always the case. I identify with the archetype of the witch, and I have carved space for ritual and meditation in my life, but it took a long time for me to get there. For one, I have leftover trauma from childhood catholicism; adhering to strict beliefs and associations (this color represents this outcome, for example) doesn’t quite sit right with me. I prefer chaos. I prefer to go off my gut. I prefer to study, learn, and then take what feels good for me. My practice these days is mostly based on meditation, journaling, and connecting with nature. 

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I’ve had a few people direct me to a specific recent article about healing/spiritual/ community manipulation and emotional abuse today, asking for my opinion. I’ve been out of commission all week with two removed teeth (fucking worst), but I did take the time to read the piece. . I’ve even written one like it (with a different subject, for which I received numerous cease and desist letters) for @lunalunamag in the past. It is still up. So I’ll keep it short and sweet: there are lots of spiritual ‘gurus’ and ‘guides’ out there. Especially on Instagram. We are treated to highly curated, beautifully designed shows of magic and healing and quotes. Some of it is amazing. Some of it feels a little shady. Right? Some people swear they can save you, that they have the answers, that they can guide you to divinity or healing. Some sell products. There are as many frauds as their are people who want to support, empower, uplift, and love you, though. Sometimes there’s no way of actually knowing, though, since all of this is presented in such a magnificent manner. No one can hold all the answers. No one knows you better than you. They can provide tools and inspiration, but that’s it. Otherwise, even the gospel of the curated Instagram is still just a shady ass who-knows-what’s-real being shouted toward you in an array of pretty colors. This is the case for any industry. . Your gut is what matters. When you feel like you need support and encouragement or a little burst of inspiration, find what feels right to you. Whether that’s joining a group dedicated to ritual or reading quotes from a certain influencer. There is a dark belly to even the beautiful things—and your gut knows it. Trust your own feelings and put stock in your heart above all other promises and products. I say this because I have experienced group manipulation, promises of splendor, people trying to tell me how to get rid of my “demons” in ways that felt off to my own personal intuitions. It’s a hard, vulnerable line to walk, and it’s easy to be led astray. This is not on you. But it should be stopped. 💓

A post shared by Lisa Marie Basile (@lisamariebasile) on Feb 20, 2019 at 3:43pm PST

So when I see someone make grand promises, that you have to do this to do this, or believe this to achieve this, or buy this to get this— especially to the vulnerable: the poor, the sick, the disabled, the traumatized, the abused — it doesn’t sit right with me.

Sometimes those promises come in the form of feigned care and support, when at the bottom of it all was an Instagram strategy and some pretty words.

I don’t believe that any one person can have the answers. And I don’t believe that anyone should peddle goods to people when they don’t have the integrity to back it up.

Among those promises would be actual spiritual advice despite questionable stuff, like the not-so-ethical production of goods, plagiarism of both products and feel-good quotes, and employee mistreatment. This likely happens a lot, but all of this came up in the Daily Dot article about this one specific person.

So what do we do about it all?

I wrote a book about self-care and regenerative rituals, so I spent a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing. When writing my book I wanted to make sure it was a guidebook, not a rulebook. That any practice I wrote of wasn’t from a closed culture — and that anything referenced I cited in the Resources section.

I wanted to make sure my book was a byproduct of my experience, not a way or promise or path. That the reader would be self-healing using my prompts, that I would not — and could not — be healing them. That, if anything, the book and the reader would enter into a conversation about healing together. 

That’s the thing about healing. It has to happen in a safe space. Before I started really working to heal my lasting trauma from childhood — the obsessive memories of homeless shelters, assault as a child, family addiction, foster care, chronic illness — I found comfort in all sorts of untoward things.

This included drinking all night with friends who thought getting obliterated was the answer. I found comfort in false friendships or relationships, where people wanted to be loved more than they want mutual loving care. I turned to fraudulent psychics here and there for advice, and of course there were those who’d want to dig into my pockets rather than genuinely help. 

The point is, we take comfort and care wherever we can find it — and sometimes, because of pain, loneliness, poverty we turn a blind eye to gut feelings. I’s hard to know if it’s helping or prolonging the wound.

The Internet version of this really is the abundance of healers and guides out there. Many of them are wonderful — and many are my friends, who take special care to create products and books and ideas around self-care and healing products — but many are there for fame and fortune, not to help.

They want to preach at you, not have a conversation. They claim to know the answers, rather than admit that they’re always going to be searching. They lack self-awareness, charging big money to people who literally are seeking magic work because they’re on the verge of eviction.

It’s hard to know what sort of intentions people have. Sadly, there’s just no cut or dry answer. How could there be? I think our gut has to do the work. But for the gut to work we have to have self-compassion and give ourself the space and time to let our intuition work. This is a process — a process damaged by hope being dashed by scammers.

We could spend $45 on a healing candle from someone with 50,000 followers and a beautiful Instagram page, someone who hasn’t provided insight or vulnerability elsewhere or even a glimpse into their own real lives. Or we can buy a tarot session or a book or a crystal from someone who is less concerned with a perfect, sort of distant, who-are-you-really? branding, whose track record shows an active interest in trauma recovery or healing or helping others before they started earning money from it. And even the above is an oversimplification. 

If something doesn’t feel right, even if that something has a quarter of a million followers or is quoted in wellness articles, you are by no means obliged to look to it for wisdom.

I say all of this because I think on my own mother, my own friends, and myself — and all the times we needed a hand, a source of inspiration, a talisman of hope,  or a guide to getting back to ourselves. It would be a real shame to get a candle or a reading or a downloadable guide that came from someone who wasn’t sincerely invested in our care, who only wanted to make money, and who used unethical means to produce a product, from conception to production. 

I read a piece the other day by Kaitlin Coppock for Sphere + Sundry. It’s a comprehensive look at fraud-work in the spiritual and healing communities, and it goes into much better detail than I can. It covers:

“Tips for distinguishing real practitioners of astrology, witchcraft, and spirituality from self-serving charlatans taking advantage of the mounting witch-strology renaissance. And lastly, recommendations for how professionals (or aspiring professionals) can navigate related ethical considerations.”

I recommend reading the above and asking questions for yourself. Stay alert, be good to yourselves, and don’t let influencer numbers drown out your intuition. 

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Lisa Marie Basile is the founding creative director of Luna Luna Magazine—a digital diary of literature, magical living and idea. She is the author of "Light Magic for Dark Times," a modern collection of inspired rituals and daily healing practices. She's also the author of a few poetry collections, including 2018's "Nympholepsy." Her work encounters the intersection of ritual, wellness, chronic illness, overcoming trauma, and creativity, and she has written for The New York Times, Narratively, Sabat Magazine, Healthline, The Establishment, Refinery 29, Bust, Hello Giggles, and more. Her work can be seen in Best Small Fictions, Best American Experimental Writing, and several other anthologies. Lisa Marie earned a Masters degree in Writing from The New School and studied literature and psychology as an undergraduate at Pace University.